Earth 2150 Trilogy

Earth 2150 is one of those games with contains a plethora of interesting and innovate features, but has many of them marred by technical or design issues. + Three different factions with customizable vehicles (chassis+weapons+energy shield) and building (weapons+shield). All factions can produce ground and air units, two faction also can produce three different pure naval units - All units are vehicles, no infantry (if that's an issue for you) + All three factions have an expansive research tree - ...which contains some gadgets (like the earthquake generator, anti-rocket systems, or upgrade for Tier 0 units) which you will hardly ever use. + The player can build bridges spanning rivers or canyons, dig tunnel systems to bypass enemy defense lines, or deform the terrain to dig trenches or flatten earth to make it passable - The construction units used to deform terrain have an ugly tendency of accidentally digging themselves into a hole which they can not escape from + Three games with three challenging campaigns and many varied missions - ...which suffer from the priority target to gather resources (Earth 2150), have an uncanny amount of recycled maps (The Moon Project), or are extremely difficult to the point that it is virtually impossible to attack enemy bases before the enemy AI has run out of resources and which also give the enemy AI entire platoons of free units every few minutes (Lost Souls) -...many "Destroy enemy base" missions drag on endlessly because you need to locate and destroy dozens of small defense buildings all over the map + Many control options for individual units (i.e., Turn lights off at night to become harder to spot, but also slower) - Poor unit pathfinding and general AI, long response time to commands While Earth 2150 and its expansion packs definitely are good RTS games with tons of innovation in them, those wishing to have fun with them require a good amount of patience to deal with their many flaws.

Pretty underrated game, one of the most unique RTS games out there as well as my personal favorite. No not perfect, but which 20 year old game is? It has a lot of features that you won't find in any other game. The plus: - Love the possibility to individualize your units, - as well as the research tree, - as the mass destruction weapons. - The three factions are well balanced, each with their distinct designs (different units, buildings, weapons) - U can keep all your units from one mission, even collect all the ressources if you don't mind grinding them. - Possibility to build tunnels till under enemy bases. - ........ The cons: - Don't expect a great storyline - sometimes grinding takes much time - Your transporter is limited in the ressources and units it can carry in one go... For 6 bucks, a must try!!!

Earth 2150, when it first came out, was one of the most unique RTS games of its time. When it came out, no RTS of its time had the features it had: fully customizable units (right down to the treads you could put on the bottom), an expansive tech tree (actually expansive is putting it mildly, you could literally go the entire game without exploring an entire side of the tech tree). Also, whenever you got a new technology, there was a video that commemorated you achieving this feat, making it worthwhile to go through multiple times and get every tech out there. The campaign itself, though, is rather basic, but I like the fact that, unlike in other RTS games where it is just a bunch of missions, in Earth 2150, you were always being pushed by the clock. This limited amount of time meant you were always rushing to beat missions in as quick a way as possible. Nowadays, RTS developers would look at said game style and balk, as it would not be what the mainstream, less-hardcore people would want, but if you like actually needing to use strategy but also have a time limit, then this is for you. As for its other features, Earth 2150 comes with a rather robust level editor. In fact, I must admit, this editor is actually just as robust as Starcraft 2's, if not more so from the fact that you can adjust every single feature of every unit and building on the map, thus setting up some unique scenarios. I still remember making a map where it was up to the four other guys to take a fortress that was filled with high-level units (but the one player in the middle was not able to move much out of his base, and thus had to use those units for defense), adding tension to the game. It is only sad that you cannot really share these maps with other people through a modern system similar to Command and Conquer 3, but given when it came out (when dial-up connections were still wide-spread), it makes sense to have the two internet play options it has. It also introduced the fact that having lights on your units mattered when nighttime came. It also introduced true stealth elements (which, again, CNC and SC (Starcraft) have yet to do), where you could launch successful sneak attacks by turning off the lights on your units, but your enemy could turn off the lights on his buildings when the sun went down, making it very hard to spot in the pitch-dark. It worked both ways, as having lights on allowed you to see what was going on in your base, so it was a sort of choice that had consequences. In terms of graphics, I must say Earth 2150 still lives up to this day. In fact, it wasn't until Command and Conquer Generals that Earth 2150 was finally surpassed, and it was not even by that much. Earth 2150 sports some of the best 3D RTS graphics of its time, with unit detail being the foremost focus, but also the environments being rather pretty to look at as well (which didn't hurt matters). In terms of sound, I say Earth 2150 has a good soundtrack, though it is not the greatest soundtrack I have ever heard during its time (that would go to Starcraft, Command and Conquer, and other games), but it is still pretty decent. I daresay you would have a hard time saying it is truly bad. Overall, this game is a very good RTS, is it the greatest? Not by a long shot, but does it still deserve to be in every hardcore RTS fan's library? Yes it does. Its $6 price-point is also a steal, considering you get the full game plus both expansions, not to mention the soundtrack. So if I were you, and I was a hardcore RTS fan, I would definitely give this my money and time. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself playing for hours.

I bought this game a year ago for pennies. Looking for solutions to bugs and crashes, I found the InsideEarth community, [wiki.insideearth.info] and discord. Updates are constantly(but slowly) being made for this game, bug fixes, graphics, performance, balance and clunky interface improvements. Even EarthNet has been revived, so gameranger is no more required to play with others. Game is still 20 years old, multiplayer is hard to master. However, if you like old, difficult games, I recommend it. Singleplayer campaign is also interesting and this atmosphere of inevitable doom. Game offers interesting mechanics during the game, a lot of technologies to explore,ability to build your own vehicles, build trenches, tunnels, fortifications, bunkers, aviation, weapons of mass destruction, even weather control centers. And of course interesting factions, post-Soviet ED, AI-controlled UCS and most distinct, corporation from the Moon LC. Maybe it's nostalgia, but for me the graphics in this game have aged well.

Hm, a sequel to 2140. RTS. It's a bit better this time around. This one comes with two stand-alone expansion packs: Moon Project, which adds units and harder campaign, and Lost Souls, which is just even harder mission pack. To make the game not freeze when you open an important construction window by pressing F1 I think you have to set game's resolution to 4:3 aspect ratio while having it run on OpenGL. Also, videos in expansions packs didn't play until I went to deep webz to install video codecs. Now I am still sad as those videos don't run smoothly. And what can I say. The developers once again tries to stay at the top of a game in gameplay, this time bringing innovation of being able to "create" your own units by choosing a chassis and 1-2 equipments. No infantry. Slow research but it's usually for whole campaign or maybe you have to create multiple research buildings. Very slow unit construction but that's why you must build multiple buildings. Interesting campaign in original which meshes main base with your mission bases, can use transport inbetween. There is one more faction, up to three, and they feel even more different, making it more interesting. Some very basic terraforming by building bridges or trenches or going underground. And once again they managed to make playing the game feel unappealing. This time mostly due to combination of slow pace and not being able to alt-tab, while somehow being slightly bland. Or uncomfortable. Not sure. Though it's mostly due to lack of balance in campaign. LC is actually easy mode, UCS is medium and ED is a hard mode in original game, despite it being in opposite order. Also, tutorial sucks, you need much more units to win it than it tells you, more buildings and research much earlier. I bet that more than enough players just quit due to how "hard" it was, haha. But eh. It's eh. But it's a better more innovate eh than eh 2140. I like my eh 2150 sometimes, especially with all the light at night in-game, it's pretty.